Crushing It! Book Review

How great entrepreneurs build their business and influence - and how you can, too

Crushing It! Book Review

First off, this was my first ever eBook. I’m more of a physical book kind of guy but I’ve had to step up my reading now that I have an app specifically for readers (check out the link at the bottom), so I guessed that I should download Google Books and start reading at every chance I got. I wouldn’t say I’m won over but I love the copy tool which let’s you choose a selected piece of text, copy it and then I paste it in my notes app Skribal (a lot easier than typing it all out).

Anyway, Crusting It! by Gary Vaynerchuck. I’ve followed Gary for a long time on social media and read his book Jab, Jab, Jab Right Hook. This is a follow up to a book he wrote back in 2009 called Crush It! which features more up to date examples. The book details how you can build your brand or become an influencer on social media in today’s over-crowded socially aware world. Gary use’s real life examples of people who read the first book and then built a great personal brand using the different platforms he recommended.

The great thing about this book is that it breaks out the platforms into different chapters, so if you only want to learn about YouTube, or Instagram, or Twitter, or Music.ly (what the hell is that?) you can easily flick to the relevant chapter. One thing I would say is, read the whole book. You’d be surprised which platforms resonate with you or which intertwine and compliment each other. Gary also sets out scenarios which are great e.g. Paul is a dentist, he decided that he was going to focus on kids dental hygiene and created one pillar piece of content for his blog, then he created a mini series of videos where his two kids sang while brushing their teeth. You get the gist.

All in all a very good book and a must read if you want to build your brand online. This is a long one, I couldn’t remove anything as it’s all really good stuff. I’d give it a 4.5/5

Dan Roche

Introduction

“Those who are truly crushing it have grasped the brass ring of grown-up-hood—building a lucrative business around something they love that enables them to do what they want every day.”

“The secret to their success (and mine) had nothing to do with where they came from, whom they knew, where they went to school, or what field they were in. Rather, it had everything to do with their appreciation for the platforms at their disposal and their willingness to do whatever it took to make these social-media tools work to their utmost potential.”

“None of the people interviewed for this book knew they’d become rich; they became rich because they were incredibly, ridiculously good at what they do and worked so goddamn hard, no one else could keep up.”

“Imagine the security you would feel if you had something going on the side that you could blow up big if you unexpectedly had nothing but time.”

“Parents are trying to get their children off Pokémon Go when augmented-reality gaming is going to be huge for generations. They think their daughters should make less slime and do more algebra. Slime may be a fad; slime could also become the conduit through which a girl learns the dynamic of supply and demand on Instagram and builds a million-dollar personal brand and company.” – this note really resonated with me as I have an 8 year old daughter who is obsessed with making slime. I often tell her to play some other game because I think slime is pointless. Bad dad : )

“We need to give our children as much freedom as possible to gravitate toward what they love doing.”

“We can have all the control. Every damn bit of it. The sooner we realize that, the better off everyone will be.”

Chapter 1 – Get Pumped

“Even with only a thousand followers, an entry-level Instagrammer could earn about $5,000 per year with just two posts a week, and ten thousand followers could net almost $20,000 per year.8 Again, that’s with just two posts per week; imagine the earnings if that Instagrammer posted more frequently.”

“I’m an entrepreneur who built a $150 million media company in part because of my personal brand, which I developed by first creating valuable content that grew my influence.”

“It’s a matter of survival to think beyond your current successes and constantly look for ways to create new ones so that you’re never limited to any one platform or even one topic. How do you do that? By creating a personal brand so powerful that it transcends platforms, products, and even your passion.”

“Oprah was not just a talk show host. Muhammad Ali was not just a boxer. The Rock is not just a wrestler. A strong personal brand is your ticket to complete personal and professional freedom.”

Dan Markham from YouTube’s What’s Inside? – “I’m thirty-seven, and I’ve been working on this since I was nineteen years old, trying to develop myself. It took all of those years for it to happen. But now I feel like I’m finally at a place where I wanted to be. It’s crazy that this is where it is, but I love it.”

“You can’t half-ass this. It will require big risks. It will take all your mental capacity, your time, and your leisure. You’re going to eat shit for a long time, but I promise, the sacrifices will be worthwhile. I also promise that once you’ve developed a robust personal brand, you will be able to enjoy as much or as little leisure as you want—because you will be entirely in control of your own life.”

Amy Schmittauer – “Maybe I could turn this thing I was doing for fun into something else by simply leveraging what I knew really well—how to use video, how to talk to a camera like it’s a person—and then craft the messaging for a very specific type of person. It was the only fire I ever really needed to hit the ground running because I knew what to do at that point.”

Good point about knowing your value by Amy – “Obviously, the definition of devaluing yourself is working for free, but I also think I would have stayed too low in my pricing because of how much it was devalued as an industry in the beginning. Crush It! allowed me to wrap my mind around the fact that my skill was a major, major asset, both in marketing and customer service for businesses. That’s what made me a lot more confident in my pricing and monetizing on my terms. And my confidence, believing that I’m worth more, has helped me get paid much more over my career. I just kept taking the chance, because I knew I was doing good work.”

“To make sure she stood firm on her prices, for a while she created a separate virtual assistant e-mail and negotiated for herself under a different persona.)” – this is a great idea for anyone freelancing. Know your value. People will barter you down on price but if you succumb to that what happens when you get high paying customers and you don’t have any time to service them?

Chapter 2 – What (Still) Matters

About what matters in social media – “And what really matters is a pretty short list: intent, authenticity, passion, patience, speed, work, and attention.”

1. Intent

“This book features entrepreneurs at all levels of financial success and all stages of influence, but those currently at the pinnacle of both share three characteristics:

1. A commitment to service

2. A desire to provide value

3. A love of teaching”

This quote describes the thinking behind our app, Skribal. – “A number were inspired to create their products after unsuccessfully searching for those products themselves, sure that if they needed them, others did, too.”

“They gave, gave, gave, gave, and gave some more, often for free. And customers came back again and again.”

“That is, if your nature is at least 51 percent altruistic and only 49 percent selfish, you have a real shot at breaking out, because the vast majority of people are 70 to 99 percent selfish.”

“But believe me, if your every interaction and transaction is predicated on what you think you’re going to get out of it, nothing in this book will work for you. Consider yourself warned.”

“Jenna Soard (IG: @youcanbrand), founder of You Can Brand, their “truest love is watching the ‘ahas’ go off in people’s minds.” It’s in seeing how their product or service makes others feel, in helping customers solve problems, achieve more, or feel better about themselves. In short, the source of their success lies in how much they CARE. Still the best marketing strategy ever.”

How I’m Crushing It

Lewis Howes, School of Greatness

IG: @LewisHowes

“I just became this connector to all the most successful people. I never asked for a job. I never asked for business. That one-word chapter confirmed that when we show up and we add value and we care, then we can learn how to make money around it later. But show up with value first. That is how I built the last decade of my life.”

“it’s not about how much you know; it’s about how much you care.”

2. Authenticity

“Authenticity is a welcome relief to consumers who live in a society where they constantly feel that they’re being taken advantage of…… The more authentic you are, the more people will be willing to forgive your inevitable mistakes and stumbles.”

“There are three things working to my advantage in this regard: number one, I genuinely don’t give a shit what people think, which allows me complete freedom to do and say what I want.” Number 2 and 3 are irrelevant to me, take this into consideration when thinking about video book reviews.”

How I’m Crushing It

Lauryn Evarts, The Skinny Confidential

IG: @theskinnyconfidential

“Always put your money back into your business.’ So, I was like, work, work, work for tips and then put it back right into The Skinny Confidential.”

“Find that niche that you’re so good at and ride it, and ride it, and ride it until you can slowly expand out.”

“The biggest mistake I see influencers make is, they’ll work with every brand on the planet. It’s all about how many brands can they work with, not about the audience, not about the readership. I see no longevity there. I’m more focused on building my own brand than other people’s brands.”

“I just did what Gary said in Crush It!, which is constantly hitting it day after day, never giving up, keeping my blinders on, focusing on my own shit, and really, really doing me. Doing me to the best of my ability.”

3. Passion

“When you’re passionate about what you’re offering the world, whether it’s a sales training method or vintage toys, the quality of both your product and your content will more likely be what it needs to be to get noticed, valued, and talked about.”

“Passion is your backup generator when all your other energy sources start to sputter.”

How I’m Crushing It

Brian Wampler, Wampler Pedals

Twitter: @WamplerPedals

“After reading the book, she and I decided to outsource everything to outside contractors or hire people that brought in the qualities that I did not have.” – this is exactly what I do for my brand. I use a great company to build my app and edit my WordPress site.

Storytell: “At the time, many of the other companies were faceless. I simply started being myself in an authentic way and became the first president of a musical instrument company who did his own product demos.”

You Got to Be You: “I jumped in with both feet, convinced that, if I followed my passion with extreme vigor, something, somewhere would happen. . . . I just had to be patient and work harder than anyone else in my niche.”

4. Patience

“Bide your time; you cheapen yourself when you make deals while holding your nose. Remember, you’re only crushing it if you’re living entirely on your own terms.” – I struggled with this quite a bit at first with my app, but it’s the long game your working towards, not instant gratification or a quick win.

“I kept my head down like an ox with a plow, putting almost every dime I earned back into the business and focusing all my energy on building a personal brand around unparalleled.”

“Be patient. Be methodical. Pay off your debts. Unless your brand is glamorous, live simply, and even then be practical and calculated. Put yourself last. Once you’ve reached your brand and business goals, then you can start living it up (without putting yourself into debt, because that’s insane).”

How I’m Crushing It

Alex “Nemo” Hanse, Foolies Limited Clothing Company

IG: @Foolies

“Put it on another person, take a picture, take it off. Because you don’t have money so you can’t give shirts to everyone, but if you can post pictures on Facebook and Twitter and make it seem like everyone has a shirt, maybe other people will want it, too. And that’s what started happening for us, slowly.”

“Why not serve just to serve?”

5. Speed

“Hear me now: you are better off being wrong ten times and being right three than you are if you try only three times and always get it right.”

How I’m Crushing It

Timothy Roman, Imperial Kitchen & Bath

IG: @imperialkb

6. Work

“When you first start out, there is no time for leisure—if you want to crush it. There is no time for YouTube videos or shooting the shit in the breakroom or an hour-and-a-half lunch.”

“Do things! Create content daily. Biz-dev daily. Meet with two or three people per day who can get you awareness, distribution, or sales—somehow closer to your goals. DM people on Instagram with offers to collaborate (instructions in Chapter 13). You should be taking these actions twelve, fifteen hours per day. If you’re working another job, you should be cramming as much work as you can in the three or four hours you have to yourself per night (or day, if you work the night shift). And don’t forget to sleep. Six to eight hours of sleep per day or night is ideal for most people. Just make every minute of your remaining sixteen to eighteen hours count.”

“I have obnoxious ambition.”

“Whatever energy you put into something will manifest itself in equal amounts when it comes out.”

How I’m Crushing It

Deon Graham, Digital Architect

IG: @deon

“He’d been engaging people on Twitter and Facebook, but not as much as he should have been. He started watching Gary Vee. “This guy has all these followers, he looks like he has a more successful business than me, but every day he’s on social media talking to people, giving them advice, giving them free content. So why am I not doing that?””

7. Attention

Questions to ask of your target audience; “Where are the eyeballs going? What are your customers talking about? What are the newest trends in your field? What are the biggest controversies? You have to pay attention to everything.”

“Don’t become so comfortable on one platform that you don’t take the time to develop solid skills on the others. On the other hand, don’t cling to your favorite even when it’s become ineffective or overpriced. Keep experimenting even when you’re sure you’re doing it right.”

How I’m Crushing It

Andrew Nguyen, Brand with Drew

IG:@brandwithdrew

“You can brand yourself all you want, but if you don’t have credibility or have not done anything, it’s almost worthless. You can only sell something that’s actually good.”

Chapter 3 – The Eighth Essential – Content

“To monetize your personal brand into a business using social marketing networks, two pillars need to be in place: product and content.”

—Crush It!, chapter 5

“Creating all that content can seem daunting, but it’s a lot more manageable if you focus on creating one big piece of pillar content that can be splintered into other smaller bits of content—content that breeds like rabbits, if you will.”

“You are unique, and you provide nuance, perspective, and details that no one else can. That means you don’t just have the ability to generate unique pieces of creative—you are the unique piece of creative.”

“Let people learn who you are, then let them watch you develop into who you want to become.”

“Documenting guarantees that every encounter and every engagement is captured so I can ensure that I’m never caught off guard when I experience a moment that could spark a valuable piece of content for my followers. Documenting has liberated me from the pressure of having to create all the time.”

“Let your audience meet your cranky uncle, let them see what you’re eating for lunch, let them follow you as you slog through the workout you love to hate…… If I could give some advice to my seventeen-year-old self, I’d tell him to turn on the camcorder and capture every minute of his training” – I’ve tried this and you should try it too.

“You never know what you’re going to put out that inspires someone important to reach out to you. People who see your work will come to you with ideas and offers and partnerships.”

“Documenting to build a personal brand is an especially good tactic if you’re already working a job that you want to leave someday. Build your brand and gain traction in your niche before you ever need to make any money, so that when you are ready to step out of your current job, your brand is there to hold you up and carry you to your next opportunity.”

“Embrace your newness; in many ways it could give you an advantage. You will likely have a fresh energy and enthusiasm that many more-seasoned professionals. And admitting that you’re still learning will give people a reason to check in on your progress.”

“Perfection doesn’t exist; it’s totally subjective. We earn people’s respect and loyalty when we let them see us up close and dirty.”

How I’m Crushing It

Rich Roll, Rich Roll Enterprises, LLC

IG: @richroll

“I really took to heart something that Gary made very clear in that book and continues to make clear to this day, which is that you have to have the long view.”

Great advice from Rich – “Instead of just being lighthearted and fun about it, I really did think, “OK, what is the purpose of this tweet or this video or this Facebook post? What am I delivering that’s gonna be of value?—whether it’s a smoothie recipe, a certain sort of strategy about training, . . . [or advice on] how to be a parent and train for a crazy race like this and not get divorced.”

“So what if INSERT BRAND HERE is costing me some money? As long as it’s not making you broke, just go for it – “I had to work my butt off for many years to get to this point. I had to be willing to lose the house to pursue this dream, and reconfigure my relationship to material things.”

Chapter 4 – What’s Stopping You?

“For real, when the haters come at you, just shake it the fuck off. You know they’re not crushing it because they’ve got time to waste spewing poison at you.”

“All the reasons people throw out to justify why they’re not doing what they say they want to do boil down to one of three kinds of fear”

1. Fear of Failure

“I don’t give a crap what people think, and yet there are days when I will go to ridiculous lengths to turn around someone’s negative opinion of me because I care equally what everybody thinks about me.”

“Commit to ignoring every single voice that threatens to undermine you”

Great advice: “You have to let yourself be your sole judge and jury.””

“No one who played it safe ever made it big. ”

How I’m Crushing It

Rodrigo Tasca, Tasca Studios

IG: drigo_who

“You have to start building those connections. That’s what drove me. At first it could be discouraging, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

2. Fear of Wasting Time

“If you’re under the age of thirty-five, this isn’t even an issue. You can always go back to the practical world in twenty-four months if you stink or hate what you’re doing.”

“People are so scared they’ll be wasting time if they try to build a business, even when their time isn’t valuable…… But if you’re giving up only your downtime—time you would have otherwise spent with Game of Thrones or some video games—how can you say it was wasted?”

How I’m Crushing It

Sean O’Shea, The Good Dog

IG: @thegooddogtraining

“What would cause me to come back to a Facebook page or a YouTube channel over and over again? And the only answer I could come up with was if it helped improve my life, if it had value in that sense. And that was my guiding light.”

3. Fear of Seeming Vain

“Don’t worry about seeming vain. Embrace it. Everybody else who is crushing it did. Remember, smart entrepreneurs don’t care what other people think. You’ll look like an ass for a while if you walk around with a camera constantly pointed at your face, but everyone looks like an ass when trying something new…. Everyone’s an ass until they’re a pioneer.”

“Set Your Mind to Success”

“Care about quality, value, and the customer experience above and beyond anything else”

“It’s my greatest hope that by the end of this book, you’ll feel a lot like nine-year-old me as I hurled myself into the deep end of the pool and realized, “Oh, I can fucking swim!””

How I’m Crushing It

Mimi Goodwin, Mimi G Style

IG: @mimigstyle

“Now you need to spend time asking all these questions” – this is a great idea and something I do religiously to build my following.

Chapter 5 – The Only Thing You Need to Give Yourself to Crush It

How I’m Crushing It

Pat Flynn, Smart Passive Income

IG: @patflynn

This is a great story. I’d highly recommend referring to it in the book and revisiting it many times.

“This is available to people 24/7/365, and I don’t have to be there in order to actually make the transaction happen.”

Great idea: “Gary was actually replying to the occasional negative reviewer and saying, “Hey, I’m sorry this book didn’t speak to you. Let’s get on the phone and chat.” I couldn’t believe that an author was paying attention, responding to comments, and offering a phone or Skype number. Many of the one- or two-star reviewers came back with a follow-up comment. They might not have changed their opinion, but they’d say, “Gary, I still don’t agree with you, but I so appreciate the time you took to reach out to me and understand where I was coming from.” That impressed me more than even the content of the book itself. Where is the ROI in responding to a one-star comment? I saw that (a) he took the time, (b) he cared enough to reach out, and (c) he cared to see what he could do to improve.”

“being confident in who you are, not trying to be like somebody else. When you really own it, and you put yourself out there and be you, your vibe is going to attract your tribe, and you’re going to be able to make change in this world.”

“But come on! I mean, the LEED exam? Are you kidding me? If Pat Flynn can make a stellar income off a website dedicated to helping people pass an exam only a few people in the country have ever heard of, you can do it”

“….with soccer trivia or smoothies. Please dig deep into what you know best or what you love most, or better yet, what you know best and love most, and start creating content. Follow the blueprint Pat’s story provides; go deep, go niche, and provide real value in the form of entertainment or information.”

PART 2

Chapter 6 First, do this

“No matter what kind of influencer you want to become, everyone must start with this step: create a Facebook business page.”

How I’m Crushing It

Costa Kapothanasis, Costa Oil—10 Minute Oil Change

IG: @costakapo

“He used Twitter searches to find any vehicle-related conversations that would give him a chance to talk to people.”

Chapter 7 – Get Discovered

“You need to understand something: when you’re starting with nothing, you will find that your absolute breakthrough opportunities will be developed in two ways:

1. By the smart use of hashtags, a strategy that requires an unbelievably long grind.

2. By direct-messaging, i.e., reaching out directly to people and offering something of value in return for their attention, a strategy that requires an unbelievably long grind.”

“Collaborations are the absolutely most tried-and-true way to grow a fan base quickly—quickly being a relative term. In most cases, you should count on this process taking years, not months. If that bothers you, close the book.”

“If established influencers see an upside to collaborating with you—allowing you to post content on their pages, working together to create content—they’ll get back in touch…….. if you reach out for six or seven hours a day, you will eventually find someone willing to try something new with you.”

“I won’t lie. Biz-deving this way is hard, tedious, and time-consuming. I like tedious. It means most people won’t do it…… But if you’re just starting out and have no money, this is the number-one thing you can do to build your brand.”

Chapter 8 – Music.ly

“You can create content as long as five minutes, compile video clips into stories, and collaborate on duets with other musers.”

“If you’re seeking to build your audience, go where the audience goes, wherever that may lead.”

“Riding hashtags is one of the bedrocks of social media and a key to discoverability.” – great tip

“the best way to reach out to a community is to become part of a community. Engage, comment, share, and create without asking anyone for anything. Become part of the community, and you’ll have a much better chance of getting someone to create a meme using your material, or better yet, create your own meme that other people fall in love with and share.”

I do well with alpha guys because I have alpha male DNA.”

“Someone who has transformed his life through self-development knows how to reach others seeking a similar epiphany.”

“I’ve actually gotten a lot of pushback from people and other businesses. They want a return on their efforts right away; they don’t understand why I’m investing time. They don’t understand that social media is a long game and that it’s about developing a brand as much as it is about selling a product. And if nothing else, at least you develop rapport with people who come to your business. But they don’t really see that. So it’s been a little lonely because I’m doing work that I believe even though those people around me may not agree with my methods.”

Chapter 9 – Snapchat

“Sticky fan base is willing to be patient as you experiment your way to the next iteration.”

“It’s not about the angle or editing or lighting or how good you look, it’s just you for ten seconds being real with your fans.” DJ Khaled”

“Khaled just was who he was. Some people might call such banal, spontaneous content dumb and worthless, but that would be like saying that the minutiae of our lives are dumb and worthless. They’re not.”

“Snapchat, though, is where we put our throwaway content.”

“Only one in twenty of you is going to do it well. You should be busting your ass to be that one in twenty.”

Great passage: “Lauryn Evarts, The Skinny Confidential – “I answer every single snap I get, and sometimes I get two hundred a day. I sit down at night for an hour and in the morning for an hour, and answer every single question. It’s almost like text-messaging your readers like they’re your friends. I think it allowed people to really come into my life and allowed me to come into theirs. It’s just a different way of being social. And it allows me to tell a story, and while I tell that story, I’m 100 percent providing value to the audience.

For instance, if I go to cryotherapy, I take a picture of where I am, and then I show me in the booth freezing my ass off.

And then I can show what I wore, and after that, I Snapchat the little flier with the benefits. So what my followers get out of that is where to go, what the benefits are, what they should wear, and what it looks like when you’re in the chamber. With every single thing I do, I try to hit those four points. I’m not just going to post a picture of my coffee cup. I’m going to say, “Today, I’m drinking iced coffee. I’m drinking it with a silicone straw because it’s BPA free, and I like cinnamon in it because it helps with your blood sugar.” Every single snap needs to leave them with something or else it’s narcissistic.

With Instagram Stories, you’re competing with a lot of people. Snapchat has white noise, and whenever I see white noise, I’m intrigued, because that’s the way to stand out. Some of these influencers have just been taking pictures for the last five years. Snapchat forces you to show your personality. Are you intelligent, are you funny? What are you bringing to the table other than what you’re wearing?

That means that to be a Snapchat influencer, you need to be strong on the other platforms as well. The content you produce for Snapchat has to be powerful enough to draw views on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.”

“The business world is separated into two camps, conversion-based salespeople and branding-and-marketing people. The former are short-term players; the latter, long-term. With no disrespect meant toward sales, I always try to teach you to be branding-and-marketing people, because the great, life-changing upside resides in long-term thinking, not in figuring out how to make a quick buck.”

“Collaborate. There is no discoverability on Snapchat; people have to know who you are and be motivated to come find you and follow you.”

Good idea: “offer something valuable in return for a shout-out or endorsement on their channel.”

“The11thsecond.com, a website founded by Cyrene Quiamco, also known as CyreneQ, snapchat artist and influencer extraordinaire. She created the website in response to the app’s lack of discovery.”

How I’m Crushing It

Shaun McBride, Shonduras

IG:@shonduras

“Usually you have to be more proactive than that. Shaun had a plan. He set himself series of goals, and everything he did from that moment was in service of meeting them.”

“What’s the secret to his success? “Personal relationships. I think a lot of people establish fake, one-way relationships—they just want to ask for something, or they want to do a collab and get a shout-out. They don’t develop those real relationships and provide value and just give, give, give. If you do that, eventually you’ll get back, and that’s where the success comes.””

Chapter 10 – Twitter

He doesn’t completely say it but Gary gives the impression that Twitter is harder work than the other major platforms. It’s more conversational and hard to declutter the chat. That being said it’s a good place for biz-dev. Starting convos about collaborations between brands. But remember, good dinner guests are great listeners too.

“It’s difficult for consumers to absorb everything you want them to when you’re talking to them on Twitter. The constant chatter and massive volume has been great for the spread of ideas, which is good for influencers and media outlets, but the chat glut has also made it harder for people to break out as Twitter personalities.”

“Listening well is the key to engaging well on Twitter. It’s by listening that you can find the conversation threads that can lead you to the people passionate about the subject around which you’re going to grow your influence.”

2. Its retweet feature offers a remarkable opportunity to create instant awareness. Let’s say you make a YouTube mash-up of the rapper Logic’s music videos. It’s unlikely he’s going to see it, even if he’s tagged. Share the mash-up on Twitter, however, and the retweets can propel your video to dramatic virality, the kind that even the biggest influencers notice. This kind of word of mouth does not exist on Instagram or Snapchat and is enormously beneficial to content creators.

3. Volume doesn’t matter. You can post one, two, forty seven times on Twitter. On Twitter, you are always just one comment away from getting noticed and making a name for yourself, so the more times you get a chance to talk, the better.”

“In fact, there’s no better place than Twitter for sports personalities and enthusiasts, because there is literally no limit to the number and kind of sports conversations in which you could engage.”

“Start by looking at the trending topics (in the mobile app, you’ll see them listed when you click on the Search symbol)”

Gary on how much time you should put in: “do it again—for four to six hours, or as many as you can spare when you’re not at work or school. Remember, eleven minutes is eleven more than zero, but also remember, twelve minutes gives you more at bats to win than eleven.”

“(news stations monitor Twitter closely for material). One piece of content in a Twitter environment can be worth a hundred on any other platform. It’s that disproportionately impactful.”

“I found the thing that I could do, and I beat the shit out of it. I locked myself away for two years. Every day, day in and day out.”

“Crush It! talks about building your business off of search.twitter.com. I also made it a point to answer every single e-mail that came in. I put up my Skype number so that anybody could call at any hour. If I was sitting there, I would take the call. Then I would get the caller’s permission to record the call, because there’s nothing like free content. They were asking me questions, and if they’re asking it, then other people probably have the same one.”

“You are not going to be successful unless you put the work in. If anybody tells you otherwise, they’re full of shit. It’s all of the perseverance and all of the hard work you put in in the decades leading up to it that make you ready. Are you passionate about what you’re doing? Are you good at what you’re doing? Then fucking do it. It’s one thing to read the book; it’s another thing to take action.”

“Like me, he put out hundreds of hours of content while receiving little traction up front. But that didn’t stop him…. — he didn’t give up too early. Persistence is everything”

Chapter 11 – YouTube

“See which posts get the most attention and double down on whatever it is that’s making those posts stick. But you have to put something out to know if you’ve got the goods.”

“I figured out that I could be me. I’d held back, not because I was worried about the opinion of the world at large, but because I was afraid if I really let loose, I’d jeopardize all the hard-won relationships the wine store had with longtime customers who bought $10,000 of wine from me every month.”

This goes for everything, not just YouTube: “don’t let perfection be your enemy. Do not be another dreamer who puts up ten episodes, gets trolled or ignored, gets discouraged, and takes the channel down. For God’s sake, give yourself a fair chance to succeed.”

“if you are really talented, smart, funny, or creative, you will win. It might take you a few more months or even years than it would have in 2011, but it will happen.”

“The point is to dream big and then make the practical adjustments necessary once you see where your potential lies. However, you will never, ever know the extent of that potential until you try. I guarantee it’s greater than you think it is.”

“6 Mins for the Next 60 Years of Your Life.” (Google it.) – CHECK THIS OUT

“Every day, you film a vlog post” – great idea

a. Video Optimization

“Titles: How much thought have you put into your video title? Does the title accurately reflect the video’s content? Is the majority of the title viewable on mobile? Is the title short and concise, emotionally driven, and/or keyword optimized?

Descriptions: Are the top two lines of the description keyword optimized? Are there links to other similar videos or playlists in the description? Is there a subscribe link? Are there links to your other social-media accounts? Are all of the links clickable and trackable?

Tags: Are there at least ten tags in the description? Are both one-word and phrase tags included? Do the tags accurately reflect the video’s content? Are the tags valuable, that is, do they have high search volumes but low competition? You can find this out by using tools like VidIQ, Google Adwords Keyword Planner, and Keywordtool.io.

Thumbnails: Does the thumbnail accurately reflect the video’s content? If there is text on the thumbnail, is it easy to read on all devices? If there is text, does it complement the title?

YouTube cards: To extend watch time on your channel, are you including YouTube cards within your video to drive traffic to other relevant videos you’ve posted.

b. Channel Optimization

Banner: Does the banner accurately reflect the channel’s content and genre? Does the graphic transfer well to all devices?

About Section/Channel Description: Are the top two lines keyword optimized? Is the first paragraph an overview of the channel? Have you included the upload schedule? Are all of the social-media links clickable? (They don’t have to be trackable.)

Playlists: Does the channel have custom playlists? Do the playlists have keyword-optimized descriptions? Are the playlists featured on the landing page of the channel?

Channel Trailer: Is a channel trailer displayed on the landing page? Does the channel trailer accurately reflect the channel’s content and genre? Is the channel trailer telling the best story in the amount of time.

“FameBit – brands post offers for influencers to promote their products” – check it out

“You never know what is going to take off in life. Definitely nothing is going to take off if you are not consistently working hard and trying different things forever. I never thought that I’d be cutting things open, but if I didn’t try and fail at all these other things for all those years, this would never have come about.”

Chapter 12 – Facebook

“Here’s the reality: if you’re going to build a personal brand and try to monetize it, you have to have a Facebook page.”

“With every share, no matter how micro, you’re building awareness of your brand in a native way. If anything, it’s the best place for people with no followers to begin their personal branding efforts.”

“Collaborate. If you are building a brand based on jokes, cooking, bikes, extreme sports, or bathing suits—anything—go to the top of Facebook and do searches on terms that are relevant to your business. Find the fan pages with the most followers, message them, and make them an incredible offer that makes it worth their while to share your original content on their platform or to work with you in other ways. For example, if you’re a biker and you get a viral hit on your post about how a motorcycle helmet saved your life, the best thing you could do would be to spend hours getting in touch with every single popular motorcycle fan page and offering them a brilliantly funny PSA about helmets to share on their page. Collaborating through Facebook is a strategic move that has enormous potential to quickly build your audience.

Then you make more content. You go out and film or photograph the places you talk about in each podcast and post the files to Facebook – DR: good idea for Skribal . Film and photograph bookshops, libraries and interview librarians, staff etc”

Read The Thank You Economy

“When you’ve got no audience, you should be taking every opportunity to engage with people who are taking an interest in you. To do otherwise is absolutely bonkers. The fact that this needs to be said speaks to many people’s audacity and laziness.”

“You know that you should never ask for anything until you’ve given twice as much or more than you’re hoping to get.*”

“If you engage like crazy and build your personal brand properly, people will learn that you’re a real estate agent,”

“but they won’t shy away from you, because they’ll know you as a human being first, just as they would if they’d met you in person. Once you become an influencer within these groups, members will check out your Facebook business page and contact you when they’re ready to sell or buy a home……This strategy sounds like a hell of a lot more work than just posing for a picture in front of a cute house while holding an Open House sign, doesn’t it? It sounds a lot more interesting, too. Which strategy do you think is going to attract the attention and loyalty of more consumers? You know the answer.”

How I’m Crushing It

Brittney Castro, Financially Wise Women

IG: @brittneycastro

“On having to get content pre-approved “it taught me how to be very thoughtful and intentional, and not just throw up stuff for the sake of it.””

“I actually don’t even care what others are doing in the industry. I never even really look. I just work on my company and my brand.”

Gary – “when you take the time and effort to learn how to navigate toward your goals while still following the rules, you can go forward without fear.”

Chapter 13 – Instagram

“There are so many great tactics you can use to garner awareness—hashtags, collaborations, tagging, ads—that I believe the attention an influencer can enjoy here, especially skilled photographers, chefs, designers, and other artists.”

“Anyone wishing to build a personal brand should be on Instagram. Create a profile now, or regret it for years to come.”

“7 Steps to Biz De

1. Make sure your Instagram is full of incredible content, the best you can make. More people are about to come see what you’re about.

2. Search relevant keywords. For example, if you’re building a biker brand, motorcycles.

3. Click on the first hashtag that shows up. As I write this, there are over 2.4 million posts with #motorcycles.

4. Click on every picture you see with that hashtag. The first four that show up in this instance belong to accounts that have a combined following of over one million Instagrammers.

5. Investigate every account and any linked websites to confirm that they are owned by people or companies in your field, or even if they’re not, to check if they could use your services or products anyway.

6. Click on the three dots in the upper right corner of their pages and send those individuals or businesses a custom-written direct message. Do not spam with cut-and-paste bullshit. If that’s the best you can do, you’ve already lost.

7. In your message, explain what drew you to them (I love your work; I’ve always admired you; you post the funniest memes; this post is so creative; etc.), why you are worth paying attention to (my goal is to promote better biker safety; I’ve designed a helmet even the most helmet-averse rider won’t mind wearing; I’ve launched the freshest, most exciting biker-themed YouTube channel on the Internet), and what value you can offer (I’d like to send you one of my helmets to try; I’d love to invite you on air to talk about your new book, and I’d be honored if you’d let me make you a free video documenting your next ride; I can send you six bikers to model leather jackets on your vlog for free).

You can also target your search by location. Just type in the name of your city, sometimes even your neighbourhood, and click Places or look for the location symbol in your list of top results. You’ll see everyone who posted in your immediate area.”

Do this—”search, click, investigate, DM—for six to seven hours every day. Do it during every lunch break, every bathroom break, every time you’re waiting for your child to get out of dance class, and in the twenty minutes you’ve got before the enchiladas come out of the oven.”

“Only a tiny fraction of the people you reach out to will respond. That’s all you need. With every successful contact, you increase your ability to prove yourself worthy of any attention at all, and you increase your visibility. Do this enough times, and the effect will snowball until suddenly you’ll be the brand that people and businesses start reaching out to.”

“Aside from getting influencers to mention you or your product, or paying for ads, you know that the fastest way for a brand starting at zero, like yours, is to master hashtags. If it’s springtime, and you’re posting a picture of a woman in a canary-yellow raincoat, you include the coat brand’s hashtag, along with #EnAvantwear, #springfashion, #springlooks, #raincoat, #readyforrain, #yellow. As more people spot your work, in time you become known for your fashion sense and cheeky sense of humor.”

How I’m Crushing It

Brittany Xavier, Thrifts and Threads

IG: @thriftsandthreads

She figured out that she was supposed to tag brands and use hashtags by looking at other accounts like hers.

“So many people write me and say, “I wrote a post and no one read it. So how would I grow that?” I’m like, “You didn’t even do any consistent work.” I worked so much on the weekends and nights while working my other job. I didn’t go out with my friends. I didn’t go out on dates. We literally stayed at home and worked on our computer after our daughter went to bed. It’s a lot of writing; it’s a lot of research. You don’t just sign up. For the first year, I wasn’t making any money, maybe $100 or $200 a month. It was nothing. People don’t understand that part. They’re like, “Why would you do it for a year when you see no return?” I was seeing a return on my readership, and my following was growing, and that was motivating me. But for someone starting a blog who wants to make it specifically for money, it’s a hard way to start, because you’re not passionate about what you’re doing. You have to love what you do.”

Chapter 14 – Podcasts

This is a good platform if you’re conscious about being on camera.

How I’m Crushing It

John Lee Dumas, Entrepreneurs on Fire

IG: @johnleedumas

“For eight months, I listened to as many podcasts as I could. And it struck me that, jeez, I’m driving to work every single day, I’m hitting the gym multiple times per week—I need to find that seven-day-a-week show that interviews an entrepreneur and talks about their failures, lessons learned, aha moments. So I went to iTunes to find that show. It didn’t exist! And I thought, I can’t believe this. Why not be the person to create that show?””

“What I found very clearly was, if you are willing to commit to delivering free, valuable, and consistent content, you are going to build an audience from that. Then, if you are willing to engage that audience one-on-one and ask them, “What are you struggling with?” and then just listen, they will tell you what their pain points are, their obstacles, their challenges, their struggles. And then you, the person that they know, like, and trust, who’s been delivering that free, valuable, and consistent content for a significant amount of time, can provide the solution in the form of a product, or a service, or a community.”

Chapter 15 – Voice-First

“The field is clear for anyone who is clever enough to come up with something fresh and new.” – This is applicable for all platforms

“Learn the lesson now: everyone is playing the same game. If you don’t play offense all the time, every day, every year, no matter how successful you become, someday you will wind up paying defense.” – Great advice for all aspects of life.

How I’m Crushing It

Andy Frisella, The MFCEO Project

IG: @Andy Frisella

“I was passionate about making money, and that’s what held me back for so long. I wanted to make money so bad that all I cared about was making money, like most of these dudes who are trying to start businesses. And when you’re always focused on the money, you don’t really think about what you could do better for your customers. When I shifted that focus and started caring about the customer in front of me, things started happening. I’m not super passionate about bodybuilding, I’m not a workout freak. I work out to stay in good shape, but it’s just part of what I do so I can do other things. I’m passionate about creating peoples success stories.”

“Now he took a strategic approach, going heavy on valuable content instead of constant pictures of his dog.”

“I think it’s more about being authentic to yourself and finding what’s going to be the thing that suits you best, versus where everybody is and deciding that’s where you need to be. It’s about finding what works and working with that.”

Conclusion

“We should care desperately about everything, yet ot care at all what anyone else thinks. Someone will always be trying to tear you down. Talent has very little value without patience and persistence.”

“Quit being a student of entrepreneurship and start doing the goddamn work.”

“Please, please, just try, if not for yourself, then for the people you love who are watching you and who want you to be happy.”

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